Finally able to get dead HDD out of laptop

Had to remove all the screws on the back, pop the keyboard and large ribbon cable (done that before to replace it after teething puppy found there were perfect bite sized pieces of plastic on there), few more screws and 2 ribbon cables near the fan. Remove panel on the perimeter between drive and case that held USB port and headphone jack, another couple screws, then the drive in its chassis.

It's 5 years old, and my mother who manages my SSDI for me- "Otherwise I'll waste it on guitars…" has been charging me $300 a month "rent"- putting it into an account for when I really need it ($6000 oral surgery doesn't count I guess) has said It's not worth putting more money into a 5 year old laptop.

Not sure what my budget is going to be but I'm looking at some nicer new models for about what I spent last time.

Had to remove all the screws on the back, pop the keyboard and large ribbon cable (done that before to replace it after teething puppy found there were perfect bite sized pieces of plastic on there), few more screws and 2 ribbon cables near the fan. Remove panel on the perimeter between drive and case that held USB port and headphone jack, another couple screws, then the drive in its chassis.

I said music and pictures, he asked where the music would be coming from. Told him about using Reaper (lost my plugin MT Power Drum Kit which was a free download, and a couple other free ones).

He said that songs would probably take up a lot of room with all the layers ( at least he understands the concept of multi tracks- for only owning a guitar for 5-6 years now and never making any effort to play it).

I’d saved my recordings in my documents and they’re backed up to HP’s cloud. I’m getting a Lenovo, so have to figure out how to access my old stuff.